Book-club March: Reading as Writers: Something New by PG Wodehouse

How to be a better writer? Read a book!
How to be an even better writer? Discuss the book with other writers: #book-club!
How to be the best writer? Get peer-review by fellow-writers: #thewritersblock!
Interested? Come join @thewritersblock & our Discord Channel.

Book of the Month March: ‘Something New’

This month, @diebitch has chosen the book that we will be reading: ‘Something Fresh’ (first published as ‘Something New’) written by PG Wodehouse, first published in 1915. It can be downloaded here for free. It is about 190 pages long, and the first in a series of books known as ‘Blandings Castle’--although it can also very well stand on its own.

Wodehouse effortlessly pulls off the comedy genre. His prose is like a swamp, it absorbs and overwhelms you. The biggest compliment you can pay a writer is that they made you forget the real world and took you on a journey to a world that exists only in their head. Wodehouse takes you to an idealistic world which will gladden even the most hardened cynic’s liver.

Ostentatiously all his stories are love stories but there is a delightful disregard to reality that charms you.

Plotting and Timing

As a writer, this book can teach us a lot about plotting and timing.

In his own words:

“I like to think of some scene, it doesn't matter how crazy, and work backward and forward from it until eventually it becomes quite plausible and fits neatly into the story."

Wodehouse is British deadpan humour at its best!

Would you like to
read Wodehouse
It is PG rated
completely impractical
features prize winning pigs
murder novel loving butlers
dastardly aunts
pesky sisters
unctuous uncles
pugilist reverends
girl called Butterwick

The author describes
it as a musical comedy
without music.

Exercise

Wodehouse is an incredible author, but for #book-club we don’t just enjoy good books: we want to find out what makes them good. And write about it to actively apply what we learn.

Non-Fiction Exercise

Write a review. Focus on what stylistic and literary elements you found that you want to try out in your own writing. Or ones you will try to avoid. Make sure you first show the reader what Wodehouse does, what makes it work (or not work), and then reflect on how this would work in your own writing, or not.

Fiction Exercise

Write a short story using a stylistic element or the spirit of the book by Wodehouse. This is not to copy him, but to use a technique you borrow from him. Maybe a way to introduce a character. Maybe you were touched by how a scene works. Write one such dramatic scene, aim for 1000-1200 words. Later you can decide if that scene works on itself, or if you want to build it out to make up a complete story.

Other options

Of course you’re also welcome to use the book as a prompt for poetry, songs, and whatever you’d like to think of.

Make sure when you post something to steem (after going through several editing rounds on @thewritersblock of course) to mention #TWBBookClub!

Feel free to join at any time!

~ @nobyeni